


Under the Moon

by Reina1



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Dark Magic, Dark Warlock Yeosang, Implied Sexual Content, Jeong Yunho is Whipped, Light Warlock Yunho, M/M, Mentioned HoHong, Minor Kim Hongjoong/Park Seonghwa, Warlocks, yunsang - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-18 17:00:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28746588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reina1/pseuds/Reina1
Summary: Yunho WANTS.He wants Yeosang to show him everything he’s never known, from the tender way he treats his magic to the tender way he wants to be loved down.-----Yunho is a light warlock who specializes in taking down dark warlocks, and he’s one of the best. However, he hasn’t anticipated dark warlock Kang Yeosang shifting his entire worldview in just three nights.(In which Yunho questions his own reality because he sees a grown man cuddling a plant.)
Relationships: Jeong Yunho/Kang Yeosang
Comments: 8
Kudos: 34
Collections: ATEEZ Halloween Week





	1. You’re Not What I Expected

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be done by October 2020. ;)
> 
> Also for the Yunsang shippers, this is for you. There aren’t enough of us and more people need to realize how perfectly lil Yeosang fits into giant Yunho. 
> 
> (Also big thank you to the Ateez ship server for encouraging and helping me out with working through this fic!)

Yunho never thought the sky could be  _angsty_ , yet here it is, growling at him every time he steps outside his house. Lightning has already struck the rod on his roof twice (there was a power surge inside the house both times). He knows weather tends to be more extreme where there is active magic, but seriously? It’s autumn, and all he wants to be worried about is enchanting pumpkins to bark at trick-or-treaters. 

Well, that and one other thing he  _has_ to worry about, which he’ll hopefully fix today. 

He grabs a water-repelling charm from his charm box and hangs it around his neck, then pulls on a raincoat for good measure. With a sigh, he heads outside and starts trudging towards the woods at the edge of town. Lightning nips at his foot on two separate occasions, leaving him feeling jittery and lit up with electric anima, so he decides to take an easier route in even if he’ll become soaking wet. 

Yunho pulls off his charm and tosses it into the air, where it disappears in a flash, returning to its place in the charm box. He mutters, “ _Aquefacti_ ,” making a clean dive in the river next to him and hitting the surface as a pseudoliquid. 

He glides through the water into the woods, avoiding air bubbles so he doesn’t turn back, and ripples with unease as the light filters out from the river the further he gets. He can feel his target getting nearer, too, an indecipherable anima caressing his more and more. 

Yunho surfaces on the bank of the river and pulls himself out, now sopping wet and even more miserable. Whoever this warlock is, he’s going to  _feel Yunho’s wrath_ for dragging him out on such a miserable day.

“Hey!” 

He hears a shout from behind him, so he reaches for the nearest weapon, which in this case involves uprooting a small plant with a notably sharp apex. 

“There you go again,” the voice wails. Yunho turns to face an blond man stalking towards him with a murderous look (which, like, kind of contrasts with his gentle features, if Yunho’s being honest). He gets up to his feet and holds the pointed side of the plant facing the other, but the dark warlock lifts a hand, palm facing outward, and pulls the weapon towards him with a _V_ _eni_ summon. 

Yunho gets ready to blaze with light anima, thinking up every defensive and offensive spell he can use in this case, but the other man turns his back to Yunho and cradles the plant.

“Are you okay, baby? That mean light warlock pulled you out of your home, didn’t he? We gotta get you back in the ground, all right? Stay with me, little one.”  _ Is that dark warlock  nuzzling  a plant? _

Before Yunho can pose the question, the other turns back towards him, none of his previous endearment in his expression, and flicks his wrist in Yunho’s direction, saying “ _Moveas_ ,” and Yunho tumbles into the river.

He pulls himself out again, sputtering, only to see the the dark warlock carefully tucking the plant back into the soil, cooing at it as he does. 

“K-Kang Yeosang?” Yunho asks uncertainly. The man in front of him is definitely a dark warlock with the anima he exudes, but he must be an apprentice or something, right?

“What.” The man faces Yunho and cocks one eyebrow up with his mouth set in a thin line. His hair is plastered to his forehead.

“You’re Yeosang?” Yunho says, surprised.

“Yes, I am. And you’re the idiot that decided to surface near my Clockkeepers—“ Yeosang points to the velvety blue flowers that Yunho just realized he crushed— “and  uprooted  my poor baby Guardian.”

“...Sorry?”

“You should be,” Yeosang bristles. “Do you know how long I had to be awake, making sure the witching-hour leaf grafted properly?” 

“Three nights an—“

“ THREE NIGHTS AND FOUR DAYS, ” Yeosang says loudly over Yunho. 

“Sorry,” Yunho tries again. Wait, isn’t he supposed to be battling this dark warlock? To be fair, though, Clockkeepers are ridiculously annoying to grow, but immensely useful. Clock flowers have to be grown until all twelve petals emerge fully, then grafted with a single, large leaf crafted out of pure anima to signify the hidden witching hour in time. The leaf could fall off any time during the first four nights and three days and has to be put back in place in seconds or the whole plant will wither. Then, only, will the Clock flower become a Clockkeeper, useful in a variety of magical objects. Yunho is truly regretful for crushing them, if only because he could have brought them back home with him after arresting Yeosang.  Oh, right.

“Kang Yeosang, you have broken the rules of the—“

“No.”

Yunho stares at him. “What do you mean, no? You don’t have a—“ 

“I’m going inside. You’re welcome to stay out here and try to set fire to my shack while this storm rages on, or come with me.”

There is no way in hell that Yunho is going to walk into the home of a dark warlock. His vision tints blue as he summons enough anima to create a ball of light magic to knock out Yeosang—

And his vision quickly returns to normal as Yeosang flicks his wrist and dispels whatever anima Yunho has garnered so far. Yunho blinks because what the hell is  Yeosang that he can so easily reverse his spell? For the first time, Yunho considers the fact that he may be in over his head. 

“You’re really not going to cooperate, are you?” Yeosang sighs. “ _Auri_ .” 

A tendril of deep blue anima extends from Yeosang and shackles itself around Yunho’s wrists, and pulls him to Yeosang against his will. He glares down at the dark warlock while trying desperately to figure out how to reverse an  Auri spell when he’s never even heard of it. 

Yeosang puts his slender hands on Yunho’s shoulders and gets up on his toes (which, yeah, probably looks ridiculous from a distance but all Yunho can really comprehend right now is exactly what’s in front of him—Yeosang’s face). This close, Yunho can see the wisps of black curling out of Yeosang’s irises into the whites of his eyes, framed by rain-darkened eyelashes. His eyes look like living works of art, and Yunho has to quickly remind himself why he’s here to close his mouth, which has parted in wonder.

“Now you have no choice,” Yeosang whispers, then turns around and roughly pulls Yunho along into the cottage.

“You must be cold,” Yeosang muses. He’s busily moving from one side to the other of his little home, which really is little, even for someone as slight as him. It’s about two Yunhos wide, two Yunhos long, and barely a Yeosang tall, which means Yunho has to slouch when he enters (not that he realized until he slammed his forehead against the doorframe). 

“I’m fine,” Yunho bites back. The tendrils curling around his wrists became looser as they entered, but when Yunho tried to pull his hands free, they tightened like vices, turning his hands blue from underoxygenation almost immediately, so he stopped trying to escape that way. Now they just curl lazily over his wrists and gently caress the red lines on his skin. Oddly enough, he thinks they’re healing the marks they created, although Yunho doesn’t know why they would help him. Whatever the case is, the marks are almost faded.

Yeosang points at Yunho’s feet and says, “ _Calidum_. ” Slowly Yunho starts to feel warm and the water dries from his clothes—but the warmth keeps growing until Yunho feels himself burning up. He tries to say something but it only comes out as a rasp. Is this how he’s going to die? Trapped with a crazy dark warlock making tea, just boiling to death?

“Fuck!” Yunho hears from the side as he tilts off the cot. He can feel a hand on his forehead, which quickly recedes with a hiss. “ _Nihil_ .”

The overwhelming heat disappears. Yunho wraps his hands around his arms and feels dry skin already peeling off. A mug is thrust into his chest and Yeosang instructs him to drink it.

Yunho shakes his head, and Yeosang rolls his eyes. “If I wanted to kill or hurt you I would have let you burn up.  _ Drink this _ _._ ” That  is a good point, and Yunho’s not really in a position to negotiate right now.

He takes tentative sips as Yeosang heads outside.  _This is... hot chocolate_. Yunho’s surprised. It’s not like it’s very welcome right now, but Yeosang must have been trying to make it for when Yunho was cold. A cruel tactic to let Yunho enjoy something and then lock him away forever? Who knows. Miraculously, the drink neither poisons him nor burns his tongue; in fact, he feels like he’s being soothed from the inside. 

Yeosang walks back inside with a few leaves crumpled in his delicate hands and tosses them into a bowl, then mashes them into a paste. Yunho watches him curiously, nursing his hot chocolate close to his chest. Yeosang’s hair is a little drier now, and it looks oh, so soft. The lithe muscles of his back and arm ripple as he pushes the pestle into the mortar. 

“Take your shirt off.” Yunho doesn’t realize that Yeosang’s in front of him for a few seconds, and blinks up at the other. 

“Huh?”

Yeosang rolls his eyes. “Take your shirt off. I have to put this salve on you so you can heal faster.” When Yunho hesitates, Yeosang scoffs. “Again, I could have killed you earlier if I wanted. I’m not trying to hurt you.” His eyes soften at the end of his sentence. 

Yunho tentatively pulls off his damp shirt and drops it on his raincoat by the door, then shifts forward on the cot so Yeosang can get behind him. He winces as his sensitive skin is exposed to the air.

Yeosang starts to put the salve on his back, and his hands are small so he’s barely covered a small patch, but the instant relief Yunho gets make him groan happily and then immediately tinge red because why did he  _ groan so erotically? _

He tries to stay silent, but whatever miracle Yeosang’s putting on Yunho keeps drawing heavy exhales and sighs of relief from him. When his entire back is cooled down, Yeosang shoves the mortar into his hands and points outside. “There’s a staircase leading to a bathroom, so you can put the rest on your legs and chest in there. You can just wash it off when you’re done.”

Yunho nods, stares quizzically at the red tips of Yeosang’s ears, them heads out. There’s a little shack with a door, which Yunho assumes opens to the stairs, so he enters it and walks down to a surprisingly large cabin-style bathroom, with a large tub, separate shower, a toilet, and an ornate sink. He wonders how the dark warlock got all this down here.

Yunho turns around and checks his back. Under the green paste, he can already see that his skin isn’t peeling anymore. He ghosts his fingers by the salve liberally applied to his shoulderblade and imagines Yeosang’s small, thin fingers gently pressing into his skin, going from one side of his broad back to the other, tending to every patch of skin and leaving the memory of his touch on all of it. 

He catches sight of himself in the mirror as he turns—his pupils are blown wide against the green around them and his neck is flushed.  _Fuck_. 

Yunho hurries and applies the rest of the salve to his chest and legs with none of the care Yeosang had, then sits at the edge of the tub as water pours into it. He needs to compose himself and arrest this dark warlock,  _ fast _ , or his worldview might change and Yunho’s not sure if he can handle Yeosang  _ existing  _ like he does in Yunho’s life. 

He can do that after this bath, though, right?

“Dude!”

Yunho wakes up, startled, and starts flailing his body around as he slips down. He barely catches a white  _ thing  _ that’s thrown at him and manages to hook an arm against the side of the tub.  _ The tub? _

“You’ve been in here for an hour,” Yeosang informs, retreating to the wall by the stairs. Yunho realizes that his skin is waterlogged from his neck down... and that the bubbles on the surface of the water from when he started the bath are completely gone. Which means...

“Fuck, I’m sorry,” Yunho sputters out, lifting himself up and hurriedly wrapping the towel around his waist.

Yeosang finally comes back out with a smirk on his face and leans against the sink. “Don’t worry about it. ‘s not my bathroom.”

“Someone else owns this bathroom?” Yunho tilts his head.

“It’s an interlocation,” Yeosang explains. “I have charms hidden in a hundred vacation cabins near the mountains, and whichever cabin is unoccupied shares its bathroom to this underground chamber. It’s a lot easier for me because I never have to clean any of the bathrooms, the cabin company staff does it whenever they see it gets used.”

Yunho was under the impression that dark warlocks used their magic for dark purposes, but he’s seen none of that with Yeosang. The one thing that actually came close was an accident, and Yeosang seems to be truly regretful for hurting Yunho. “What  _ are _ you?”

“You know my name and who I am,” Yeosang giggles, revealing the most  _ precious _ rounded teeth— “I still don’t know your name, though.”

Yunho extends a hand towards the other in a way of greeting, but the movement causes a particularly sensitive patch of skin on his left side to burn excruciatingly. He stumbles into Yeosang, resting his forehead down on the shorter’s and leaning his right hand on the counter for support.

“Jung Yunho,” he grits out. His chest still burns... and it shouldn’t, because he was burned on the outside. Right?

Yeosang puts a hand on Yunho’s bare shoulder and stares worriedly into his eyes. Yunho can see the anima curling out of his eyes, and shakes his head gently. “You can’t magic this away, Yeosang.”

“Just haven’t found the right spell, then,” Yeosang mutters. 

He pulls on Yunho’s right arm gently and guides him up the stairs. Yunho’s body, covered in only a towel from the waist down, reacts inappropriately to the cold air, but Yeosang doesn’t comment on it. Once they get back inside the cottage, he tosses a pair of sleep sweatpants and a shirt to Yunho (both probably too small), and turns away from him to start poring over a thick book open on the kitchen counter. 

Yunho slips on the clothes and tries to dry his hair with the towel, but again, his chest burns. He hisses out Yeosang’s name unthinkingly, and the other is by his side in an instant, helping him sit down on the floor. “Let me,” Yeosang says, gently taking the towel from Yunho’s hands and patting away the wet in his hair.

The action is oddly intimate for two people that have met today, especially under the circumstances that they did. Yunho startles when he sees blue anima curling into his lap, and it quickly dissipates. 

“Sorry,” Yeosang mutters. “My magic tends to just flow around when I’m thinking.”

“What are you thinking about?” Yunho asks. 

He feels Yeosang stop drying his hair. “It’s not wet anymore,” Yeosang muses, then sits down in front of Yunho. “I want to try something. Give me your hands.”

Yunho snorts. “And have you burn those, too? No thanks.” Yeosang hunches his shoulders a little and he looks away from Yunho. Something in him changes, though, and he straightens up and appraises Yunho with resolve.

“If you’re really going to be like that, consider that you’re my prisoner. Give me your hands or... or I’ll end up hurting you anyways.” His voice cracks on the last part, but he grabs both of Yunho’s hands and before Yunho can protest, blue anima wisps out of Yeosang’s fingertips and passes into Yunho’s skin, where he can see it travel through his veins until it disappears behind his shirt.

Suddenly Yunho feels a cool but comforting presence against in chest, and he can’t help but sigh happily; it’s like his heart decided to take a walk in autumn and breathe in the crisp air. 

Yeosang, however, seems to be feeling none of that. His face is contorted in pain, and Yunho feels Yeosang’s anima leave his body. When it surfaces from his skin again, it’s as a jet-black, oily substance that drips from his skin, unlike the vaporous blue hue it entered as. 

“Time,” Yeosang croaks out, before he promptly passes out on the floor.

Yunho’s too nice for his own good (or maybe Yeosang is just too cute to resist). He drips a tincture made from mint leaves into Yeosang’s mouth as his small form lies on the bed, and presses a cold, wet towel against Yeosang’s forehead, which was almost too hot to touch and beaded with sweat when he passed out. 

His eyes blink open now, and they slowly widen with surprise. Yunho scoffs at him. “I’m not going to leave you here to suffer on your own, Yeosang. Light warlocks aren’t like the dark ones.”

Yeosang struggles to his elbows, but Yunho pushes him back down gently with one hand on his chest (ignoring the hard muscle he feels there, of course, and not at all thinking about where else under his clothes Yeosang is hiding toned body parts). 

“You’re seriously misinformed,” Yeosang sighs. He shakes his head like he’s trying to repel a fly, then sits up. Yunho lets him this time. “I’m okay, Yunho. But you’re not.”

Yeosang presses a hand to Yunho’s chest and looks up at him with saddened eyes. “I’ve poisoned your heart. You were not meant for moon—I mean,  _ dark  _ magic to try to warm you from the inside. We need to reverse time within your body so your heart can heal.”

Yunho’s stomach drops. “And we could only have done that with the Clockkeepers.” He glances at the wilted flowers at the edge of the kitchen counter. “I need to go back.”

“Honestly... I have no issue with letting you go. I would have after warming you up, too, but my anima is locked within you now. It’s pumping with your lifeblood, but spoiled because it’s not meant to touch your light magic. If you stray too far from here, my anima will leave you, and you’ll have curdled blood and light anima left behind.”

“Then we have to grow these flowers, don’t we?” Yunho meets Yeosang’s eyes grimly. 

Yeosang stands and grabs a packet of seeds from a small cabinet. “I can take night watch while you take day, if that’s okay with you?”

“Sure.” Yunho follows Yeosang out of the little cabin. Yeosang crouches in front of the soil that Yunho upturned and carefully shakes ten seeds into the ground. Then he crouches low and breathes carefully onto each seed, blue mist curling out of the edges of his mouth and moving downwards. 

“ _ Ego obdurare vos _ ,” he whispers. 

Yet another spell Yunho doesn’t know. “What does that do?” He asks. 

“Keeps them strong this time around by tying them to my anima,” Yeosang replies absentmindedly. He grabs some twine from his pocket and twigs from the ground near him, and starts to tie the sprouts’ rapidly growing stems to the twigs to keep them upright. Yunho watches his thin fingers wind the twine twice, delicately, just below the small leaf buds emerging on each plant, then around the stick that he pushes into the ground an inch away. His knuckles are bright red in the cold air and the hackles on his strong forearms are raised. Yunho fights the urge to gather Yeosang into his lap and warm Yeosang’s hands between his own.

_ W h a t.  _

“Okay, so these flowers should be good to start blooming tonight.” Yeosang stands up and wipes his hands on his cargo pants, then as an afterthought, snaps his fingers with a quickly muttered “ _Proluo_. ” Yunho watches the rest of the brown on Yeosang’s hands collect into a ball and fall onto the ground. 

“I don’t mind taking watch for the evening and the night,” Yeosang says. “It’s darkening, anyways. I’ll have more energy with the gibbous moon, too.”

“Oh, right. Your dark magic is tied to lunar appearances,” Yunho comments, peering up at the moon in the purpling sky.

Yeosang stares at him incredulously, and Yunho feels self-conscious suddenly. Is Yeosang’s dark magic not tied to the moon, like Yunho’s light magic is tied to the sun?

“Yes,” Yeosang finally says, sighing like he’s conceded something. “My magic is tied to the moon.”

Yunho gives him a smile. “Perfect time to be growing Clockkeepers, then.” 

Yeosang leaves Yunho inside with a salve to put over his chest, above where his heart is. It has a welcome cooling effect, and Yunho’s able to move his arm around without his heart burning, but he decides not to push it and falls asleep on the cot, a wool blanket draped across his bare torso to keep him warm. 

He wakes up to a gnawing emptiness in his stomach, then catches the smell of something strong close by. It smells like... tteokbokki? The spicy, cool scent of kimchi follows close behind. He follows both to a plate on the counter with both things he smelled and a glass of water. Yunho senses the anima in the glass and guesses that it’s self-refilling, probably drawing water from the creek nearby. 

He grabs the plate, sits down by the door, and begins to eat. He’s... confused. Everything Yeosang has done so far has not directly hurt him. In fact, the one time he’s been hurt is from the other trying to  _help_ . Yunho thinks back on the meeting with Hongjoong before he left to arrest Yeosang.

_“The dark warlock you’re going after is kind of... tricky,” Hongjoong says. He starts moving the papers on his desk to be at perpendicular angles with the desk, which Yunho has come to realize is his nervous tick. What’s even more telling, though, is the way Hongjoong’s hair turns a timid lavender color._

_“Jongho tried to strongarm his way through, and he was charmed back to base tied up in ropes. San pulled out his wood-sprite sweet talk, and he showed up at our door unable to speak in anything but Yiddish. And you’ve seen Mingi.”_

_“Well...”_

_Hongjoong sighs. “Yes, I know he’s still invisible. We’re working on that.”_

_Yunho’s surprised. “You couldn’t just remove the Illusion talisman?”_

_“There was no talisman.”_

_“Then—“_

_Hongjoong slams his hand against the wall. “I don’t know, Yunho. That’s why I’m sending you.”_

_He gets it. Yunho graduated from the Witching Enforcement Academy with perfect scores, just barely doing better than Hongjoong himself. Hongjoong was chosen simply because they could trust him more, because his half-fae genetics meant his hair always revealed his inner feelings. But Yunho knows all the spells in the book by memory, has every magicking rule rote-memorized. There’s no one better to take care of a particularly troubling warlock._

_He nods and grabs the file from Hongjoong’s desk and rifles through it. “Why does... Kang Yeosang need to be brought in?”_

_ “Set fire to a shantytown at the edge of the city. A few people were burnt, not hurt too badly, there was a light warlock who saw everything from an apartment nearby and cast a  nonflamma  spell ,  but a lot of the shacks they had up caught fire. Unsalvageable. They’re being relocated, but...” There’s no place like home. Yunho understands. _

_“I already hate him.”_


	2. You Overwhelm Me, and That’s Okay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Basically Yunho can’t resist Yeosang—but he’s not special, neither can anyone else. Enjoy!

Yunho can’t really figure out how he forgot about what Yeosang did enough to get here, on the floor of Yeosang’s cabin, wearing Yeosang’s clothes, eating Yeosang’s tteokbokki and kimchi (which far surpasses Yunho’s expectations for food, but he supposes that being a dark warlock doesn’t necessitate being a bad chef). 

He can’t... really find it in him to hate Yeosang now. He knows he should, but having seen Yeosang just  _exist_ makes it impossible to find that enmity again. He wonders if the whole incident was one giant, horrible fluke. Yeosang wouldn’t try to hurt so many people, would he? 

Yunho rinses his plate in the sink and leaves it there. He decides to let himself heal for the next few days, and accost Yeosang when he’s strong enough to fight back. 

_Although you weren’t strong enough at your fullest strength_ ,  he’s reminded by himself unhelpfully. That’s why he’s here in the first place, and not at home watching his favorite drama  _Imitation_ with Yeosang locked away. Strangely, he can’t bring himself to be annoyed about that.

“Awfully early for you to be sleeping,” Yunho comments when he walks out. Yeosang’s head is tilted towards the ground with his neck at a painfully sharp angle, and there’s a thin line of drool between his mouth and the ground. 

“Mmm.” Yeosang groans as he stands up, rolling his neck around in circles. “I have no sense of time anymore, Yunho. Only of tiredness, and fatigue has no regard for my Circadian rhythm.”

Yunho tries to ignore how Yeosang’s voice somehow gets even  _lower_ after waking up (and he tries to will away the things his voice does to Yunho’s body, with varying degrees of success) and sits down in the spot Yeosang occupied. “That’s a very poetic way of saying you’re tired 24/7.”

Yeosang crouches back down to his level and lightly flicks his forehead. “But I’m not. Sometimes on moonlit nights I’m so energetic I  _glow_.  Other times I procrastinate on my uni work so much that I pull two all-nighters and want to evaporate.”

“You go to uni?” Yunho asks, surprised.

“Being a warlock in the middle of the forest is not a sustainable career, Yunho.” Yeosang grins at him, ruffles his hair, and stands up again. “I’ll be back with some snacks. Watch the Clockkeepers.”

Yeosang pads towards the house silently despite the plethora of leaves on the ground. Yunho can’t help but watch him go, his white shirt becoming semi-transparent and displaying the dips of his small waist. Yunho is a sucker for people small waists (Hongjoong can attest to that from the one time they tried to date). 

He turns his attention back to the plants only to see that one of them has dropped its witching-hour leaf. He panics, grabs it, and sticks it to the side of the plant. “ _Simul_ ,”  he says, panicking. His golden anima sparks out of one finger onto the leaf and makes it wither.  _That is_ not  _supposed to happen_.  He’s certain this is the right spell to reconnect the leaf, so why is it ruining it instead?

“Have you never cared for plants before?”

Yeosang comes back and looks at the leaf in his hands with a hint of derision. “What do they teach you at your Hogwarts now?”

“I tried a  _simul_ spell and it did this instead. It’s supposed to work,” Yunho tells him weakly. 

“It’s supposed to work if you do it correctly, yes.” Yeosang takes the leaf from his hands, brings it to his mouth, and breathes the spell onto it. His anima curls gently around it and as the leaf is brought back to the Clock flower, it reconnects seamlessly. 

He turns towards Yunho. “Your memorization of spells doesn’t matter. What matters is intent, and if you don’t use your spells with the right intention, the words are meaningless. Do you really think a few Latin words strung together can replace the power of pure anima as old as the universe?”

“But—“

“Yunho.” He says sternly. “Be honest. Is that really what you believed?”

“Focusing your energy on the words is the easiest way to get a spell to achieve something, because then you have an anchor to the spell,” Yunho recites his middle-school Magical Terminology teacher.

“You’re focused _only_ on the words then, not on your anima.” Yeosang grabs his wrist and guides it so his fingers gently brush against the leaf. Without saying a word, Yeosang’s blue anima tendrils travel on top of Yunho’s veins and spark off his fingers onto the leaf. It unshrivels, turns vibrant green once more, and reattaches itself to the Clock flower.

“Hmm.” Yunho has no words for Yeosang’s affinity for magic. He’s always thought that his words were his biggest weapons, especially as a warlock, but in one day, Yeosang had upturned so many preconceptions. 

“Maybe I can help you feel the anima later,” Yeosang says, handing him a pack of potato chips. “If you let go of your enmity.”

“My enmity?”

Yeosang pops a handful of chips into his mouth. His lips purse out into a pout with every chew, and Yunho unthinkingly wipes off the crumbs on the side of his mouth. He  _definitely_ doesn’t think about how Yeosang’s cheeks flush a pale pink after.

“You uh... you hate dark warlocks.”

“Well, you  _are_ the bad guys,” Yunho agrees, indignation rising.

“Have I ever hurt you on purpose?” 

Yunho pauses. “No. But you’re the exception, Yeosang.”

Yeosang sighs. “Yunho, I’m not the exception. If you really did trust me, my anima would have combined with yours instead of poisoning you like it’s doing.” 

Yeosang walks back towards the hut without another glance behind him, leaving Yunho on damp grass with only his thoughts and a half-empty bag of potato chips. 

_Yeosang is a dark warlock. Yeosang is dark warlock. Bad. Beware the dark warlocks. DO NOT ENTER._

Yunho tries to convince himself that he should just run for it. That’s what all his teachings have told him anyways, that dark warlocks are not to be trusted. 

His  _instincts_ say otherwise, though. In fact, Yunho has felt no malicious intent from Yeosang so far: at least, none that he hasn’t earned. If he really looks into his own feelings towards dark warlocks in general, he could honestly say that his discomfort comes from the fact that the light warlocks know  _nothing_ about them. That fact has only been solidified with his time here, with all the spells he knows nothing about and techniques he still can’t believe work.

And Kang Yeosang himself: he’s... he’s something. Never has Yunho met someone so hard to understand, yet so easy to read. He knows he’s been handed so many answers last night but he doesn’t know what questions they satisfy in the first place. Maybe he’s not ready to know.

But he would like to try. Fates, he’d love to try anything with Yeosang. He can’t admit it when they’re together or he wouldn’t be able to control his own actions, but Yeosang is  _hot_ , a blond-haired, golden-tanned, lithe man with a stature so self-assured that Yunho would have thought Yeosang was as tall as he was if he hadn’t been standing less than 6 inches away from him, staring down into darker-than-night irises. 

And Yunho  _wants_. 

He’ll admit it here, outside Yeosang’s house with the afternoon sun slowly beating down on him, no one around to see the flush in his neck and the way his eyes darken when he thinks about the other. He wants Yeosang to show him everything he’s never known, from the tender way he treats his magic to the tender way he wants to be loved down. 

Oh, _no_. Yunho is whipped.

Yunho is  _whipped_ and here comes Yeosang with a steaming plate of noodles, looking too ethereal for daylight, making Yunho’s heart race at how  _domestic_ all this is like some sort of paradox he should never have gotten swallowed by. 

“I hope you’ll like it,” Yeosang says, leaving the plate in Yunho’s hands. After hesitating for a few seconds, he drops down on the floor. 

Yunho starts eating yet another plate of deliciously made food. “Had a nice nap?”

Yeosang stretches and lets out a yawn. “Yeah. Magicked to a nice honeymoon suite for a few hours. Best nap I’ve had in a while. Those noodles are compliments of the Alphaville Hotels, by the way.”

Yunho holds back a comment about Yeosang taking him to this honeymoon suite and testing out the durability of their bed with him, but the thought makes him choke on his food. 

Yeosang gives him a judging stare. “You’re not the most elegant of light warlocks, are you, Yunho?”

“Mmmph!” Yunho protests around a mouthful of noodles, then swallows. “I am! I am so elegant. First in my class at the Witching Enforcement Academy. The best warlock in Seoul and nearby provinces.”

“But you’re not head of the department.”

“My friend Hongjoong is. He got the job because he’s cuter,” Yunho jokes, but Yeosang’s face turns stony at the words.  _Huh_.

He tries, “Hongjoong is a fae, so his hair reflects his intentions. Can’t get away with much, but his boyfriend Seonghwa loves it.”

Yeosang’s face lights up again. “So you and Hongjoong are friends?”

_Interesting_.  “Yeah, we have been since we were in kindergarten. Tried dating for like two days at the Academy but we realized that it wasn’t for us. Hongjoong met his boyfriend when we were both hired. Seonghwa looks like a boring office worker but I’ve heard the two going at it on overnight trips to seminars and he is  _nothing_ but vanilla.” Yunho shudders. He will never  _ever_ forgive the couple for ruining both his innocence and four straight nights of sleep. He has yet to return the favor, with all his romantic endeavors falling apart because he has to hide his magic and his job from his partners. Briefly he imagines that Yeosang could help him get back at the Seongjoong couple with a  _similar_ loud and steamy activity. 

“Too spicy?” Yeosang says sympathetically, noting the flush on Yunho’s neck. “I thought you could deal with spice, but I guess I was wrong.” 

Yunho clears his throat. “No, uh, just kind of hot outside.” He thinks vengeful thoughts against Hongjoong before anything else starts flushing red. 

“ _Solis minuit._ ” The air around them darkens slightly as Yeosang’s black anima diffuses into their surroundings. The intensity of the sun becomes toned down and the temperature feels more like autumn, as it should—although now it’s a little too cold for Yunho’s tastes. 

“Thanks.”

They sit in comfortable silence for a few minutes, then Yeosang informs him that he’s getting his History of the Occult book to study for his classes. He comes back with a thick, dusty tome, blows anima onto it, and suddenly a scene comes to life on top of the cover. 

“Easier to learn this way,” Yeosang says with a shrug in response to Yunho’s look of disbelief. Yunho’s lost track of all the new spells Yeosang has used.

The shorter man puts the book gingerly on a dry patch of ground, then sits back by Yunho, their knees touching. Yunho absolutely does  _not_ look over at his small frame and shining eyes and slightly parted pink lips.

Hongjoong’s bad spray tan, Jongho stuck in a giant apple, Mingi eating mustard with ice cream. No Yeosang thoughts. No Yeosang, no Yeosang, why is he so  hot _—_

Luckily at that moment, someone gets beheaded on the 3D movie playing on the book, and the butterflies in his stomach are quickly replaced by a slight queasiness. 

Yunho falls asleep later in the afternoon sometime around the thirteenth sacrifice and wakes up when the sun sets with his head resting against the hollow in Yeosang’s neck and arms wrapped around his shoulders. He forgot how clingy he was in his sleep, and now Yeosang probably thinks he’s a weirdo with no boundaries.  _Great_ .

He quickly moves away and rubs out the soreness in his side. Yeosang silently absorbs the anima from the book, then shifts to face Yunho with a suspicious grin on his face. He leans in close and then cups his jaw with a small, strong hand. Yeosang glances down at Yunho’s lips, then moves even closer so that his puffs of breath fall right on his mouth.

“Hey, Yunho?” He whispers. 

“Mhm?” His answer comes from low in his throat, a whole octave below his normal voice. Yeosang’s thumb rubs against the side of his lip.

“You’ve got drool on the side of your mouth, did you know?” 

Yeosang quickly dodges the shove Yunho tries to give him, rolling backwards and cackling. Yunho quickly rubs at his mouth, feeling the heat in his cheeks and desperately hoping his ears aren’t burning red, too. He will  _fight_ this tiny man. Gently. With his lips. With consent, of course. 

“I hate you.” 

“No you don’t,” Yeosang giggles, already at the doorway of his home. 

They have a silent but expressive dinner. Yeosang keeps glancing at Yunho with a barely-controlled smile and then looking away, and Yunho watches him warily.  _ What do you  want , you beautiful gremlin?  _

“You’re not very subtle,” he says, coming up behind Yeosang with his dirty dish. With heart beating in his chest, he presses his chest flush against Yeosang’s back and rests his chin on the other’s shoulder.

Yeosang calmly finishes washing the plate he was just handed while Yunho considers melting into a puddle.  _Is this rejection?_

Finally Yeosang turns around and stares up at Yunho. “I wasn’t trying to be. Maybe I should have been more obvious?” His lips press together, holding back laughter, and his eyes shine brighter even as they darken with desire.

Yunho licks his lips nervously. Is this real? “The Clockkeepers, Yeosang.”

I can split my anima into another version of me, but that’ll take a lot of energy. You’ll have to do all the work for us,” Yeosang whispers, trailing a finger down the side of Yunho’s face. It raises goosebumps as it moves down his neck, and then Yeosang grabs the collar of his shirt and pulls Yunho against him, their lips meeting and anima flushing out of both of them in a wave of magic.

Yunho mouths down to Yeosang’s neck. “Should have known you were a bottom,” he growls. 

Several things happen at once: Yeosang shoves Yunho towards the cot and splits into two before his eyes: a solid Yeosang with rumpled hair and shirt and eyes swirling with anima, and a shimmering night-blue outline of him that runs through the door. Then the solid Yeosang stumbles into Yunho and they both fall backwards, into nothingness as the walls of the shack turn into baby-pink drywall and they land on a giant, plush bed with red sheets and white pillows, Yunho wrapping his hand tightly around Yeosang’s waist to hold him there. Yeosang rolls his hips down slowly, a grin spreading across his face at the embarrassingly breathy sigh that Yunho lets out. 

“Call me a bottom again, babe, I dare you,” Yeosang whispers into Yunho’s neck, repeating the motion. “I’m a switch and proud.” 

Yunho notes the way Yeosang looks more spent than he should and remembers the energy Yeosang is spending on the quasi-Yeosang watching the flowers back at his home. He would love to sit here and take Yeosang’s slow grinding but he would love even more to hear Yeosang’s breathy sighs at his hands, so he grabs the smaller man’s hips and rolls them over, placing a knee on either side of him and capturing his lips again. 

They slowly become more and more intertwined until Yunho can’t imagine a time before knowing the map of Yeosang’s body on his skin and lips and fingertips, its topography imprinted onto his own body. Yeosang is beautiful under him, with flushed cheeks and tear-darkened eyelashes. They become one and Yunho sees the flush of black anima curling from his irises, pulsing through his veins and misting over Yunho’s own skin, but he feels no pain at this anymore. 

Yeosang digs his fingers into Yunho’s back as he reaches his peak and Yunho takes care to carry him through before he follows. In the periphery he sees inky black anima expel itself from his pores and dissipate into nothingness, but pays no mind to it.

“That was fantastic,” Yeosang breathes a few minutes later against Yunho’s collarbone. Gold and black-blue magic swirls above them in the air like a painting of the night sky dotted with bright stars, rising and falling with their breaths. 

“You’re so perfect,” Yunho sighs on the crown of Yeosang’s head. All he can think about is the smaller man resting on his chest, no thoughts except about what they did and the infinity of things they could still do, together. 

Yeosang giggles and wraps his arms around Yunho’s midriff, and Yunho slings an arm against Yeosang’s tiny waist. They fall asleep like that, no factions dividing them and no rivalry in the space between their skin.

Yunho wakes up to his own climax and Yeosang bent over him at the foot of the bed, wiping off his mouth. “Thought I should take care of that morning wood for you.”

Yunho’s face flushes as the memories of last night come back to him. “Weren’t you low on energy?” He rasps.

Yeosang grins up at him. “The moon is finally waxing.” 

Yeosang looks like Adonis beaming at him, but the thought of the moon makes Yunho’s stomach churn. Yeosang is a  _dark_ _warlock_ ,  and Yunho just did the biggest form of fraternization with the enemy.  _His_ enemy, to be exact: he was supposed to arrest this man two days ago when he first arrived. 

Yeosang doesn’t pick up on Yunho’s shift in emotion, though. He starts putting on his clothes, tan body looking surreal in the morning sunlight. He tosses Yunho his borrowed clothes and watches expectantly as Yunho slips them on in a self-induced stupor of moral conflict.

Yeosang grabs Yunho’s wrist and tugs them back down against the bed, but they keep falling as they did last night and end up on the cot—

And in front of Kim Hongjoong, whose eyes slowly widen as he takes in their rumpled clothes, messy hair, and  intertwined hands .

“Yunho. What the _hell_?”

_Fuck._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Next chapter will feature Panik™ by the Acheese kids as Yeosang cheerfully and strategically judo-flips warlock stereotypes. 
> 
> Also, if you’re interested in joining, there’s a small Ateez ship server on Discord hosted by celestialwishes, for anyone who makes, edits, or just loves to see Ateez content and enjoys semi-permanent chaos induced by Ateez: https://discord.gg/snCNVshkVa


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